Re: keyboard/mouse programming

Rod Pemberton <do_not_have@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in part:
Did he, a PHD, misrepresent the facts there?

No, did did not present fact. The essay is fairly
clearly a piece of advocacy.

CATO institute site which is well respected, isn't it? Ah,
it's libertarian - they're against government intrusion into
capitalism and into individuals lives - seems good to me...

Yes, as far as advocacy. Not necessarily facts or
expectations of results.

I'm far more cautious. RRC is extremely hard to prove.

"Hard to prove...," but, is it illegal by law or precedent.
Or, is it just a supportive argument for anticompetitive
behavior defined by other laws and precedents

RRC would be considered anticompetitive behaviour which is
illegal. Unlike most law, offense details aren't enumerated :(

What concerns me more is the redefinition of capitalism,
at least for dominant corporations, by anti-trust law
and precedent to a subset of capitalism defined, not
by economists or exceptional capitalists, but by legal

Antitrust has been around for at least 117 years.
Everything we see has already been affected by it.

Furthermore, antitrust was enacted during a period of what
would now be considered flagrant anticompetitive abuses,
which subsequently stopped. Did it kill the golden goose?
I'm afraid we'll never know.

So from that perspective, capitalism, defined as attempting to
earn a profit on some product or service, becomes the ability
to reduce your costs to maximize your profit spread or the
ability to raise your competitors costs to encourage them to
raise overall market prices to maximize your profit spread,
i.e., RRC. If there is a 50/50 split (you/them) between
the two and RRC is declared to be illegal for all companies,

I doubt RRC would be declared illegal behaviour in the
absence of pricing power. I furthermore doubt the split
would be anything like 50/50 . RRC is extremely difficult
to perform effectively.

That still indicates to me that it's just a supportive
argument from your perspective.

That's all it needs to be. Anything which reduces competition
is illegal for a monopolist.

-- Robert



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